In my opinion, your step dad was WRONG when he told you that you were a messed up little kid.  That is not the way to speak to any child.  I feel like I could have greatly benefited from therapy during my childhood.  There are pent up feelings, hurt, and beliefs I carry inside.  I struggle with self-forgiveness.  I have read numerous self-help, psychology, and mindfulness books, and still am searching for ways to forgive myself and move past past-hurts.

There is a guided meditation I listen to often called Forgiveness by Dan Ireland of Awareful.  I listen to it on an app called Insight Timer.  It almost always makes me cry.  I find it helpful.  Perhaps you would as well.

From your posting, it is clear you did not have it easy growing up.  You had the courage to get out of there and enlist in the military and serve your country.  You have the courage to post about your struggles here.  Give yourself a ton of credit for being brave.  I hope you are able to find ways to forgive yourself.

Dear Joe:

I am glad you started your own thread and thank you for your kind words. I am not focused enough at this time to read and reply to you with the attention that you deserve, therefore I will be back to you tomorrow morning, in about 16 hours from now.

I was wondering if you can elaborate on this sentence before I return: “There were some brutal, embarrassing times that I endured as a ‘fresh adult'”- but please, elaborate only if you feel comfortable doing so, and only to the extent you feel comfortable with.

anita

Dear Joe:

First I will retell what you shared and add quotes:

As a child, you lived with (1) your step father: an alcoholic and substance abuser, a very narcissistic man who abused you physically, emotionally and psychologically, telling you that you were “a messed up little kid”, (2) your mother, an alcoholic and substance abuser who abused you in all kinds of ways, severely neglecting and abandoning you.

At the hands of these two, you “suffered all types of Child Abuse”. You told your biological father about the abuse your suffered by the other two, about what happened in their house, and he promised to take you “out of the abuse of my Mom and Step Dad’s house”- but he “never did”.

Teachers/ counselors in the school noticed behavioral problems on your part and were concerned about your life-experience at home, so, they contacted your mother and had her come to school. But your mother, “a crafty manipulator”, tricked the school professionals, acting like “this hardworking Mom”, and “out of the ears of anyone in those positions she’d go right back into behaving just as abusively as before”.

At four years old, you were “exposed to pornography and adult sexual situations”. Your biological father shared his “motorcycle magazines with naked women” with you when you were seven years old.

At 17, you emancipated yourself and joined the army. Having grown up “around people saying inappropriate things, constantly”, you didn’t know what was appropriate/ right to say and do vs. what was inappropriate/ wrong to say and do, so you said and did inappropriate things “that made people shake their heads”:  you consumed massive amounts of alcohol from 17- 18, you “lied, cheated, and manipulated to survive”, you urinated on someone door once, when drunk, and you were involved in “risky, promiscuous behaviors for awhile”.

In the town you grew up in, you were “a low, dirty, poor kid”. In the army, you “got to be something else”, finally had money to buy personal hygiene products and clothing, and three hot meals a day, and hot showers and girls started to give you the time of day.

You closed your post in the other thread and opened your original post with this, addressed to me: “I would really appreciate hearing your take on this. I’ve always thought I was some kind of whacko/ monster… I’m having a really hard time accepting that I’m not a monster for something inappropriate I did at six years old”-

– my take: I don’t see a monster or a whacko, not at six and not currently, at almost forty. I see a boy who survived and endured a terrible childhood, a boy who was a good boy all along and who turned out to be a good man. I see nothing else but what I just stated.

I am wondering if you are still in the military, and if you ever attended psychotherapy, (I understand that psychotherapy is frowned upon in the military, that it is risky for one’s career in the military, to attend therapy)?

anita

You are welcome, Joe. I wish you the best!

anita